Head coach Gerardo Seoane answered the media’s questions at his press conference ahead of the Foals’ home game against FC Augsburg on Sunday (17:30 CET). We’ve summarised his most important comments.
Head coach Gerardo Seoane on...
...the squad situation: Sadly, Tomáš Čvančara picked up an unfortunate injury whilst defending in training and will consequently be out for several weeks. Maximilian Wöber is still ill and Julian Weigl is suspended. Additionally, Alassane Plea and Manu Koné are both doubts. A decision regarding their availability on Sunday will be made following the final training session tomorrow.
...the situation in attack: Injuries are sadly part of professional sport. Čvančara’s injury is unfortunate. The fact that we’ve called up Shio Fukuda is a consequence of Yvandro Borges Sanches’ loan move, as well as Hannes Wolf’s departure. Shio already trained with us frequently during pre-season, and he knows the ropes. Therefore, he could also be an option at the weekend. Nevertheless, he’ll need a certain amount of time adjust and naturally needs to keep developing.
...their own style of play: We don’t want to play with 30 percent possession, even against Stuttgart. Too often just the result is used to judge our performance. For example, even though it’s true that we’ve frequently thrown away leads, we’ve also scored the opening goal plenty if times. Perhaps there’s always been a psychological change for us after taking the lead, meaning that we’ve then focused more on defending. However, we’re seeking a balanced style of play in general. Maybe we’re lacking the required self-confidence at the moment. Nevertheless, we want to make sure that all the statistics are at least even, especially in home games, and particularly the most important statistics such as shots.
...the possibility of winning two Bundesliga games in a row: We always have certain aims in a season. Particularly at home with our own fans behind us, we want to have consistency, both in terms of performances and points. Two Bundesliga wins in a row is always a challenge for teams that are not in the top four in the league. But what I don’t like about thinking this way is that we’re dealing with something that hasn’t even happened yet. We want to concentrate much more on our performance and let the players know what we need to win multiple games on the trot.
...the next opponents: FC Augsburg now have a different playing style. Particularly in the last game, they put in a really good defensive performance. In general, we’re seeing a team that defend well off the ball and for whom counterattacking is an important part of their system. Therefore, it’ll be important for us to make things happen with the ball and equally be prepared for their counters. We also have to ramp up our level of aggression off the ball, in order to match Augsburg’s intensity and strength in individual battles.
...Stefan Lainer: Stevie has made good progress again this week, particularly in terms of workload in training. Recently, we’ve reduced this a bit in order to see how recovers before Saturday. If he trains with no problems in the final training session, it’s quite possible that he’ll return to the squad. That will also depend on how many players we have available.
